Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
A slightly crooked finger with dirt under the nail pointed at my face. “I don’t want any trouble from you. Understand?”
I blinked several times to clear my vision.
I recognized the man. His name was Tasso or Terzo or Tomasso. Something like that.
He was an old boyfriend of Toni’s.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Toni asked me.”
I rubbed my temples. “Seriously? You’ll commit a crime because an old girlfriend asked you?”
He licked his lips. “Well, she didn’t just ask me, she also—”
“Stop! I get it.”
I didn’t need to hear what filthy sexual favor my sister had done to convince him.
“Listen, you have to take me back to Sicily.”
He crossed his arms. “I’m taking you to Abruzzo.”
Of course. The Cavalieri winery.
“I don’t want to go to Abruzzo.”
“I don’t care what you want. I was hired to drive you to Abruzzo, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“You can’t just drug and kidnap someone, there are laws.”
He snorted. “Honey, since when has the mafia ever cared about the law? We make the laws. We don’t follow them.”
That’s right. He was also a soldata for my father.
I tried that angle. “What is my father going to say when he learns you kidnapped his daughter?”
His bushy eyebrows frowned, causing them to blend into one big hairy caterpillar over his lowered brow. “Toni didn’t say anything about your father.”
I nodded sagely. “I bet there are a lot of things Toni didn’t tell you. Like the fact that she drugged me. Like it was my father’s wish that she go to Abruzzo, not me. Like how my father is going to kill you and chop you up into little pieces when he finds out about this, and not necessarily in that order.”
Who knew this would be one of the few times my father’s heinous reputation would actually come in handy?
Tasso/Terzo/Tomasso backed up a step and reached into his pocket for his mobile. “Don’t move.”
I raised both palms. “I won’t.”
It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go. He had obviously been told to stay off the major thoroughfares. We were clearly on some borderline dirt road through nothing but farmland.
He pressed a few buttons and then said, “Yeah, it’s me. You said your sister was drunk.”
Called it.
He continued. “And that you didn’t want your father to know before her trip to Abruzzo. She’s saying you drugged her, and your father is going to be pissed at me.”
Although I couldn’t make out the words, I could tell my sister was yelling at him by the way he pulled the phone away from his ear.
He opened the front passenger door. “Where? In the glove box? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fine, but you better put out when I get back and I’m not talking the normal stuff. You know what I like. And make sure you get the cherry-flavored lube, not that strawberry crap.”
Ewww.
He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the front seat. When he turned back to me, he held a syringe in his hand.
I backed up several steps, desperately searching for another car or perhaps a laborer in the field. “Please, you don’t have to do this.”
Tasso/Terzo/Tomasso shrugged. “I kind of do. You know what Toni is like when she doesn’t get her way.”
We circled around the car. “I can pay you. How much do you want?”
“Nice try. I know your daddy doesn’t give you girls any money. Toni complains about it all the time.”
Dammit.
I looked over my shoulder, further down the road.
“If you run, you’ll only piss me off and when I get pissed, I punch.”
My eyes widened as I continued backing around the other side of the car until we were almost back to where we started.
He held up the syringe. “We got at least another six hours of driving. You’d be more comfortable sleeping through it.”
“That’s not sleeping. It’s drugged-out.”
“Same difference.”
Not really.
I raised my arms again. “Please don’t do this.”
“We’re wasting time. You want it in the arm?” His gaze traveled down my body. “Or the ass?”
The thought of this man lifting my skirt to shove that needle in my ass was just the outrageous image I needed to throw all common sense to the wind… and bolt.
I didn’t get far.
His bulk slammed into me from behind, pushing my face into the dirt. His weight pinned me down as he reached for the hem of my dress. The calluses on his dirty hands scraped my thighs as I struggled.
Cool air hit the exposed skin of my hip.
Panic blurred my vision, and all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.
It was strange how being in the situation with Matteo Cavalieri was somehow a taboo, erotic rush, and being in it with this man was a terrifying violation.
I looked over my shoulder in time to see him raise his fist.
Oh, God! He’s going to punch me.
His other hand painfully squeezed my ass cheek. Then his arm came down to jab the syringe deep into my flesh. “Remember to tell your father you made me do this.”